http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/971 ... migration-
BRITAIN IS WOOLLY OVER IMMIGRATION
I wonder whether our ineffective Immigration Minister Phil Woolas was listening last week when Mayor of Calais Natacha Bouchart the gave him a lesson on how to control immigration.
With deadly accuracy, Calais’s mayor pinpointed the root of the problem. She furiously claimed that Britain’s policy of handing out “enormous” state benefits to asylum seekers is predominately to blame for the thousands of foreigners trying to clamber aboard UK-bound lorries and trains in Calais every day.
Commenting that “requesting asylum is easier with them” (the British), Mme Bouchart pointed out the stark contrast between the French and British approach to asylum seekers. In France they are usually given nothing until their claim to receive benefits has been accepted and that can often take a minimum of six months.
Asylum seekers coming to Britain can claim benefits as soon as their claim is lodged. This means that single asylum seekers can receive up to £42.16 a week and married couples up to £66.13 a week almost immediately. In addition to the cash support they can claim free NHS care, free dental and eye care, free housing and free education for their children.
Mme Bouchart points out that if you compare the extravagance of those benefits with the fact that the average Eritrean earns around £135 a year it is obvious why so many people are desperate to get to Britain. Moreover, the situation is deteriorating rapidly. The number of migrants trying to reach Britain by stowing away on lorries and trains at Calais has doubled over the past year.
THE FEEBLE response from Phil Woolas was: “If someone is genuinely fleeing persecution they should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. It is not right that individuals attempt to use the asylum system as a cover for economic migration.”
It isn’t right, Phil, but that is what those who are not genuine asylum seekers are doing. They know the rules as well as you do but they are ruthlessly ignoring them. They don’t want to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, they want to claim asylum in the country that has the most generous benefits system and that’s Britain.
Britons are kind, generous, people who are willing to help genuine asylum seekers but they don’t take kindly to being made fools of, especially when times are tough.
We must toughen up our immigration system and border control and we must listen to Mme Bouchart’s call for an urgent “change in attitude”. We must adopt the French approach and only give benefits to asylum seekers after we have established their right to receive them.
